I said tough things in the past, but it was because I wanted you to succeed. And here you are. I'm more proud of you than any guy I've ever been.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- When T.J. House sinks his cleats into the circle of dirt in the center of the diamond at Target Field on Monday night, he'll be concentrated on his scouting report of Minnesota's hitters.

He'll rack his memory for details on their tendencies. He'll team with his catcher to devise strategies for countering their every adjustment. He'll ease into that zone any focused athlete searches for during competition.

House certainly won't be thinking about how -- just yesterday, it seems -- Hurricane Katrina forced a tree through his bedroom. He won't be thinking about the trying conversations he had with Mickey Callaway, ones that prompted the Indians to consider cutting the pitcher loose a couple of years ago.

During the unrelenting baseball schedule, there is no time to reminisce. Sure, House has completed his climb up the organizational ladder after it appeared as though he had stalled out on the lower rungs. He celebrated his first major league win with a postgame beer bath in the Indians' clubhouse earlier this month.

After the season, perhaps, House will reflect on the journey, the one that begins near Lake Pontchartrain and doesn't include a scripted endpoint. Right now, though, in the thick of the season, his adversaries' hitting habits occupy his thought process.

"It's pretty cool," House said, "but instead of reflecting, you have to be shooting for higher aspirations and not looking at the past. If you pat yourself on the back now and say, 'Oh, I've done all this,' you really haven't done anything."

House spent most of his youth within an hour of the heart of New Orleans. He was born in Slidell, La., before moving to Picayune, Miss., a short drive north on I-59. He was just shy of his 16th birthday when Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005.

The superstorm snapped the levees of Lake Pontchartrain, as water engulfed the entire area. Wind gusts ripped the roof off of House's home, which was flooded with 12 feet of water.

Liuzza's, submerged under eight feet of water, after Hurricane Katrina.Liuzza's

House's stepfather's family has operated Liuzza's, a restaurant with Cajun, Italian and seafood dishes, since 1947. The mid-city building with the milky white exterior, which sits about five miles from downtown New Orleans, had to be restored after Katrina, which filled the place with eight feet of water.

House was out of school for two months. His family was without electricity for about six weeks. He stayed with friends whose dwellings suffered less substantial damage. He spent time away from the classroom cleaning up, gutting houses, picking up yards and cutting trees.

His extended family, much of which resided in the region, was displaced. Some eventually returned to New Orleans. Others relocated to Mississippi or Tennessee.

"You survive, get through it OK and rebuild from there," House said.

House did just that. He focused on baseball. Less than three years later, the Indians selected him in the 16th round of the MLB Draft.

His minor league expedition wasn't a smooth one. House posted a 6-12 record and 5.19 ERA in his second season with Class A Kinston in 2011. He surrendered 10 unearned runs, after he allowed 15 unearned runs the previous year. The lack of a dependable defense often flustered him.

"Anytime a teammate made an error behind him, he put a lot of pressure on himself," said Indians pitching coach Mickey Callaway. "Everything kind of snowballed on him, from a mental standpoint."

The struggles triggered the need for some heated discussions between Callaway and House.

"There were tough conversations, probably things he didn't want to hear but had to be said," Callaway said. "It wasn't pretty."

Callaway served as Kinston's pitching coach in 2011. He became the organization's minor league pitching coordinator the following year. No longer could he devote every day to working with House. When the southpaw arrived at spring training in 2012, the team had already relegated him to the bullpen. He was operating on a short leash.

"We thought, 'Well, if he doesn't do well in spring training, maybe he's a release,'" Callaway said.

House immediately turned heads.

"He came out and was just lights out," Callaway said. "He made pitches and nothing was bothering him. He stayed under control. We were like, 'Man, this is not the guy we've seen in the past.'"

After analyzing his high school mechanics over the offseason, House lowered his arm slot. He also agreed to modify his outlook on baseball.

"There are certain times in the minor leagues when it absolutely sucks and they force you to do things you might not necessarily want to do," House said, "but it's going to be for the benefit of you, like developing certain pitches or whether it's being able to say, 'Hey, we're going to give this run up' or later on down the road, 'It's going to make you better.' It's tough, but once you realize that it's going to make you better and you see success, the more success you have behind it, it becomes easier."

Accepting the miscues behind him also played into it. House yielded five unearned runs over his first 25 innings at Class A Carolina in 2012, but he didn't permit the defensive deficiencies to derail his performance. He limited the opposition to 17 hits and six walks during that stretch, as he posted a 1.44 ERA in those four starts and finally earned that seemingly elusive promotion to Double-A Akron.

"Even if you've thrown six scoreless and in the seventh you give up that one run, you still have to be able to control it to a point where you stop the bleeding," House said. "It's just something that you don't necessarily get right away as a young guy, but you learn as you progress through the system and you realize that it's more important to sometimes sacrifice a run to get outs than to try to be so perfect that you hurt yourself."

House progressed through the minors until he received his first call to the big leagues in 2013. He was with the team from June 24-26 as a long reliever, but never pitched before being optioned back to Triple-A Columbus. He returned to the big league club in May and has worked his way into the mix in what has been a revolving door of a starting rotation.

Despite allowing two or fewer runs in four of his first six major league starts, House remained winless. In his seventh start, he finally captured that first win after lasting a career-high 6 2/3 innings. He called his family first.

"They were excited. They've been waiting, too," House said. "They've been keeping up. They just want it to be the first step in the right direction and keep going."

They aren't the only ones.

"After his first outing up here," Callaway said, "on the bench, I told him, 'I'm so proud of you. I know I said some tough things to you in the past, but it was because I wanted you to succeed. And here you are. I'm more proud of you than any guy I've ever been.'"

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